Columbus and the Book of Mormon

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_grindael
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _grindael »

So, are the accounts written by Bartolomé de las Casas simply fiction?
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_grindael
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _grindael »

Yet into this sheepfold, into this land of meek outcasts there came some Spaniards who immediately behaved like ravening wild beasts, wolves, tigers, or lions that had been starved for many days. And Spaniards have behaved in no other way during tla! past forty years, down to the present time, for they are still acting like ravening beasts, killing, terrorizing, afflicting, torturing, and destroying the native peoples, doing all this with the strangest and most varied new methods of cruelty, never seen or heard of before, and to such a degree that this Island of Hispaniola once so populous (having a population that I estimated to be more than three million), has now a population of barely two hundred persons.

The island of Cuba is nearly as long as the distance between Valladolid and Rome; it is now almost completely depopulated. San Juan [Puerto Rico] and Jamaica are two of the largest, most productive and attractive islands; both are now deserted and devastated. On the northern side of Cuba and Hispaniola he the neighboring Lucayos comprising more than sixty islands including those called Gigantes, beside numerous other islands, some small some large. The least felicitous of them were more fertile and beautiful than the gardens of the King of Seville. They have the healthiest lands in the world, where lived more than five hundred thousand souls; they are now deserted, inhabited by not a single living creature. All the people were slain or died after being taken into captivity and brought to the Island of Hispaniola to be sold as slaves. When the Spaniards saw that some of these had escaped, they sent a ship to find them, and it voyaged for three years among the islands searching for those who had escaped being slaughtered , for a good Christian had helped them escape, taking pity on them and had won them over to Christ; of these there were eleven persons and these I saw.

More than thirty other islands in the vicinity of San Juan are for the most part and for the same reason depopulated, and the land laid waste. On these islands I estimate there are 2,100 leagues of land that have been ruined and depopulated, empty of people.

As for the vast mainland, which is ten times larger than all Spain, even including Aragon and Portugal, containing more land than the distance between Seville and Jerusalem, or more than two thousand leagues, we are sure that our Spaniards, with their cruel and abominable acts, have devastated the land and exterminated the rational people who fully inhabited it. We can estimate very surely and truthfully that in the forty years that have passed, with the infernal actions of the Christians, there have been unjustly slain more than twelve million men, women, and children. In truth, I believe without trying to deceive myself that the number of the slain is more like fifteen million.
Bartoleme de Las Casas, Brief Account of the Devastation of the Indies. (1542)
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_grindael
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _grindael »

They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. (Christopher Columbus)
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_Kishkumen
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _Kishkumen »

Johannes wrote:Oddly enough, there is a small cottage industry of conservative Christian apologists who think that Daniel was written in the Exilic period.

Any fan of rotund Victorian prose and the gentle art of special pleading will enjoy Edward Pusey's Daniel the Prophet.


Rotund Victorian prose does sound enticing, but I think I'll pass.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Kishkumen
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _Kishkumen »

grindael wrote:So, are the accounts written by Bartolomé de las Casas simply fiction?


I don't believe so, no. My feeling is that he is highly credible.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Water Dog
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _Water Dog »

Last edited by Guest on Mon Dec 18, 2017 1:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
_Kishkumen
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _Kishkumen »

Water Dog wrote:I have no idea. You say this like you have no experience with tenuous historical claims. I really don't know much about this history. But from quick searches it would seem Las Casas was not present to directly witness any of the things he attributes to Columbus. And it would also seem that Las Casas himself was a slave owner, and prior to becoming an ordained priest even participated in "raids and military expeditions against the native Taino population." Probably more important are all the details which are conveniently left out of Everybody Wang Chung's out of context quotes. Like the fact that these native populations were engaging in behaviors such as human sacrifice and disembowelment. A few hands getting chopped off sounds pretty barbaric from our cushy 21st century American perch, however it may have been a completely reasonable course of action in that particular time and place. Samuel Eliot Morison's "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" seems a more balanced history. I don't have a copy of the book, but from what I can tell he acknowledges some of what Las Casas says, but also rejects other parts, and puts everything in context.

Ironically, these efforts to demonize Columbus are motivated by the same attitudes that presumably motivated American revolutionaries to appropriate his history to begin with, right? It's all about the moral repudiation of the ruling culture's supposed history and pushing for a regime change.


OK. I follow you here, and, yet, I think there is a sort of pointless nitpicking if the question is the larger legacy of Columbus as it touches on the Book of Mormon. Let's go back to the subject of the representation of Columbus in the Book of Mormon, shall we? The question in my mind is not whether we love Columbus or not, but what the Book of Mormon's portrait of Columbus, such that it is, seems to say about its author. The first question is this: how likely is it that these prophecies would be constructed in the way they are, with the emphasis they have, if they were genuine ancient prophecies and not ex post facto fictions of the 19th century?

As regards the Book of Mormon, this is the question I am interested in. I am less interested in the question of current politics surrounding Columbus in this thread, worthy topic though it may be.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
_Water Dog
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _Water Dog »

Last edited by Guest on Mon Dec 18, 2017 1:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
_Everybody Wang Chung
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _Everybody Wang Chung »

Water Dog wrote: The idea of a small group of Spaniards in the 15th century exerting that level of violent rule over an outmatched indigenous population is every bit as moronic as million man battles in the Book of Mormon. If they had behaved in such a way they would have simply disappeared never to be heard of again.

Wow. Seriously Water Dog?

Please google Hernán Cortés to read about his conquering of the Aztec Empire.

Water Dog wrote: From just a quick search it appears there are highly reputable historians who thoroughly rebut the Columbus As Serial Killer claims. My analysis wasn't meant to be a robust argument but an explanation for why I'm inclined to side with my quick search results.

Please share.

Water Dog wrote: A few hands getting chopped off sounds pretty barbaric from our cushy 21st century American perch, however it may have been a completely reasonable course of action in that particular time and place.

It was much, much more than a "few chopped hands." Good luck finding even one historian that will agree all Columbus did was "chop a few hands." Even the account of Samuel Morison which you cite, details many atrocities committed by Columbus.

Water Dog wrote:Samuel Eliot Morison's "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" seems a more balanced history. I don't have a copy of the book, but from what I can tell he acknowledges some of what Las Casas says, but also rejects other parts, and puts everything in context.

Good luck finding a historian that would feel Samuel's book is objective or even a credible account.

Regardless, Samuel's book details horrible abuses (but attempts to justify them in the name of spreading the Catholic faith) perpetuated by Columbus. Nobody, even Mr. Morison would state that his book is an objective history of Columbus, but rather a sympathetic account biased toward the Catholic faith.

Samuel even admits to his Catholic bias/sympathies in his prologue:

"I cannot forget the faith that sent this man forth, to the benefit of all future ages. And so writing in a day of tribulation both for Europe and for America, I venture to close my prologue by the prayer with which Columbus began his work...In his name, Christopher Columbus saw a sign that he was destined to bring Christ across the sea to men who knew Him not. Indeed, the oldest known map of the New World, dated A.D. 1500, dedicated to Columbus by his shipmate, Juan de la Cosa, is ornamented by a vignette of Saint Christopher carrying the Infant Jesus on his shoulders."

Regardless of Samuel's admitted bias/sympathies toward the Catholic faith, he still discusses many horrible abuses by Columbus.

Water Dog wrote:Ironically, these efforts to demonize Columbus are motivated by the same attitudes that presumably motivated American revolutionaries to appropriate his history to begin with, right? It's all about the moral repudiation of the ruling culture's supposed history and pushing for a regime change.

I don't see much effort to demonize Columbus, only an effort to present a historically accurate portrayal. All one has to do is read Columbus' own journal and those of his men to get a taste of what a horrible man he truly was.

The real effort in the last several decades has been one of apologetics by the ultra right to keep the historically inaccurate portrayal/myth of Columbus alive and to whitewash or discredit historical accounts.

Fortunately, it's a losing battle for them. We now have a much more historically accurate picture of who Columbus truly was.
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_Johannes
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Re: Columbus and the Book of Mormon

Post by _Johannes »

Kishkumen wrote:
Johannes wrote:Oddly enough, there is a small cottage industry of conservative Christian apologists who think that Daniel was written in the Exilic period.

Any fan of rotund Victorian prose and the gentle art of special pleading will enjoy Edward Pusey's Daniel the Prophet.


Rotund Victorian prose does sound enticing, but I think I'll pass.


In case anyone's interested, I started a thread on this in the Celestial Kingdom:
http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=47364
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